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Previous empirical research has indicated that women receive less punitive sentencing outcomes, compared to their male counterparts, while controlling for legally relevant case characteristics. This advantage persists at the federal level, despite the implementation of sentencing guidelines. However, drawing from the “intersectionalities” literature, it does not appear as though all women are equal beneficiaries of this courtroom leniency. Specifically, women of color are less inclined to receive sentencing benefits in response to the differential stereotyping of this demographic. Furthermore, due to differing sociohistorical contexts and gender ideologies, the influence of gender on sentencing outcomes will likely vary across place. This study contributes to the existing sentencing literature by examining whether, and to what extent, gender leniency is moderated by race/ethnicity and geographic region. Using data from the 2015 Monitoring of Federal Criminal Sentences, this study finds that women receive shorter sentence lengths than men. However, contrary to expectation, women of color receive shorter sentences than White women. Additionally, women who are adjudicated in the southern and border districts receive significantly longer sentences. These findings demonstrate the importance of contextualizing and disaggregating female criminal justice outcomes as well as the need to limit research and discourse that imply a singular shared experience among all women.

Empirical analysis of the disproportionate application of carceral punishment has traditionally targeted race and class inequality while omitting noncitizens as a systematically disadvantaged population within the criminal justice system. Of the limited extant literature on this issue, nearly all have examined overall incarceration odds while failing to account for prison alternative eligibility, inaccurately measuring judicial discretion. Likewise, none have disaggregated noncitizens across nationality, an oversight that implicitly assuming that all noncitizens are equal recipients of discrimination, likely suppressing noncitizen disadvantage. Finally, these studies often fail to include contextual measures in their analyses. Using data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission (USSC)’s Monitoring of Federal Sentences from 1999 to 2013, this study examines case-, district-, and cross-level effects of citizenship status, documentation status, and nationality on incarceration odds, prison alternatives, and sentence length for federal drug offenders. The results of this study support the hypothesis that noncitizens receive more severe sentencing outcomes than U.S. citizens, Mexican noncitizens receive more severe outcomes compared to those from other countries, and undocumented noncitizens receive more punitive outcomes, though these findings vary across districts. However, counter to minority threat theory, noncitizen (offender) populations do not appear to influence incarceration outcomes for noncitizen offenders in the projected direction.

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pretenses blurs (if it does not cross) the line that separates treatment of the criminally irresponsible from simple incapacitation or anticipatory punishment.Their objective being to identify, rather than fully analyze or settle such questions, much of interest necessarily remains unexplored in the chapters devoted to these and other topics. For example, it is possible, if not likely, that the Bail Reform Act's authorization of the pretrial detention of arrestees because of their potential danger to the community, upheld in Salerno, simply formalized a practice that judges have long utilized without saying as much. It is not uncommon for bail to be set at such astronomically high levels that it might as well have been denied altogether, and it is far from clear whether that practice owes more to the defendant's likely future dangerousness than securing his appearance for trial. Searching for a way to limit the reach of Hendricks' approval of the civil commitment of sex offenders who suffer only from a ''mental abnormality'' (rather than a mental illness) Corrado offers a ''radical'' (p. 71) compromise. He suggests that ''violent sexual crimes be admitted as prima facie evidence of a lack of control'' (p. 71) and that civil commitment might be justified when offenders display a pattern of engaging in such conduct. This apparently noble attempt to limit the reach of a precedent that threatens to unleash the much more widespread preventive detention of repeat offenders who commit other types of crimes rests on assumptions and entails implications that demand considerably more discussion than the lecture-based text is able to provide.Much the same is true for similarly momentous questions that swirl around the other preventive detention policies examined in Presumed Dangerous. Intriguing issues lurk immediately beneath the surface of the pages used to explore the insanity defense, the prolonged detention of undesirable aliens who cannot easily be deported, and the indefinite confinement without trial of suspected terrorists in the name of national security. But there those issues remain, tantalizingly inviting recognition and analysis, yet introduced only at a level sufficient to whet the appetite of an audience rooted in a land where the U.S. Constitution and the jurisprudence it has spawned are literally foreign subjects.It would be difficult to go into the depth that issues of this complexity and importance demand in lectures under any circumstances and certainly in lectures delivered to an international audience. The audience members who actually heard the lectures that Professor Corrado delivered at the University of Trento doubtlessly were much enriched, as would be others who are new to the issues and the fundamental tensions that inhere in using law to resolve the delicate balance between individual liberty and societal protection. However, Americans who have ''done the reading''-who already have been introduced to the issues covered and the associated legal principles-might easily be excused for not attendi...

Author Sandra M. Bucerius presents an enticing insight into the trials and tribulations of marginalized immigrants in Germany, many of whom are of Turkish descent, in her 2014 book entitled Unwanted: Muslim immigrants, dignity, and drug dealing. This work is the cultivation of Dr Bucerius's graduate field research exploring the lives of roughly 55 men entrenched in the drug world of Bockenheim, a neighborhood in Frankfurt. Throughout her ethnographic study, roughly spanning 5 years, Dr. Bucerius presents a unique glimpse behind the lives of numerous second-generation Muslim immigrants, as they attempt to navigate an inhospitable environment while balancing their morals, religion, goals, freedom, and exciting lifestyles. The author ultimately argues that the structural disadvantage and social exclusion of noncitizens place this subgroup in a position in which they have elected to participate in the German drug industry, merging the effects of both structure and agency on human behavior.Rather than adhering to a strictly chronological timeline, Dr. Bucerius presents her research along thematic concepts. The book begins with a general introduction, introducing the reader to the plight of Muslim immigrants in Germany. The author concisely summarizes the backgrounds of the men, German attitudes toward Muslims as well as how these attitudes differ from those within the United States, the uniqueness of Bockenheim as a milieu for the drug business, the potential for the participants to externalize, the hurdles of forming relationships with some of the more influential members, a brief summary of some of the macro theories guiding the analysis, and a general overview of the layout of the book. This background literature is of particular utility for readers who may be less knowledgeable of ethnographic methodologies and/or current German attitudes. Negative attitudes toward Muslim immigrants are further elaborated upon by placing them within a sociohistorical framework in Chapter 1. The crux of the analysis, beginning in Chapter 2, addresses the institutionalization of immigrant disadvantage, emphasizing schooling and education as well as employment discrimination. The author acknowledges how the men in her study have rejected Germany as a place of belonging and replaced it with Bockenheim as a source of pride. Chapter 3 illustrates the business model under which many of the men work. Careful calculations are made with regard to risk assessment, customer identification, and with whom to conduct business. The author does acknowledge, however, that not all decisions are purely motivated by monetary gain. Morality, and religion to some extent, also impacts business decisions. Dr. Bucerius acknowledges a unique reappearing them of a dichotomy between purity and impurity in Chapter 4, suggesting that drug money is viewed as impure and should not be spent on the family, though this is subject to reinterpretation in times of necessity. This dichotomy is revisited in Chapter 5 when the men suggest that the primary means of desista...

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